


can't love you in the dark

by twuewuv (wyobrazacsobie)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Cuteness between our boys, Depression, Healing, M/M, Mornings, Nightmares, Slow Build, now a one-shot because reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 11:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6608905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyobrazacsobie/pseuds/twuewuv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The odd thing is that Bucky doesn't dream of gunshots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't love you in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Love in the Dark' by Adele.
> 
> If there is a beta somewhere out there who would be willing to work with a multi-fandomed writer that has a problem with tenses and commas, I'd love to say hi and maybe work something out~  
> For now, here is the un-beta'd one-shot of my first Bucky/Steve story, and basically first Marvel story too?? Yea! Woop! K bye.

* * *

 

The odd thing is that Bucky doesn't dream of gunshots.

There's no dirt beneath his sprinting feet from the old days. There are no echoes of screams that bounce off metal walls. He doesn't hear himself begging, from when _it_ all started, and he doesn't hear his dull flat voice repeating back orders from while _it_ was happening. There's no bright hospital-like lights. There's no blood spattered on walls, or exploding from within himself, or drenched in his loved ones clothing.

His dreams don't consist of noise or sight or pain.

It's silent. It's darkness. It's numb.

And he wakes up in a sweat, his heart beating frantically and his throat so tight that even though his mouth is open for a scream, nothing lets loose. His hands are clenching his sheets and his eyes are already open most of the time, his sight taking its sweet time to fade into reality. He's dizzy. His body aches.

He doesn't dream of _forgetting_ – his dreams are the feeling of having forgotten already. The blank space of a memory gone, but you don't notice that it's empty because, _what memory?_

In his dreams, he is nothing. He is lost. He's the empty mind that was so easy to control, he's the shell of a man that had nothing to fight or live for. He's silent and willing to kill. His brain is darkness with no desire for light His entire body is numb and he doesn't see anything _wrong with it-_

And then the panic, the crazed niggling in the back of his mind that feels like a bat to his skull because before that niggle, his mind was empty, lenient, and unknowing of this beautiful man until suddenly he was punching the man. The niggle comes and his entire body lurches, and he doesn't have a thought, no words come to his aggravatingly still mind, but there's this _feeling_ , the bat, the ice water over his heated skin, a rush of feeling that- that-

And that barrels through the darkness and startles him awake, like those infuriating dreams of falling that you gasp awake from.

He comes to and he's afraid. So afraid. That one night he'll dream of nothing and wake up as nothing again.

 

* * *

 

“Bad dreams?” Sam asks, and Bucky doesn't answer, just pushes his cereal around with his spoon. Sam doesn't say anything more but continues to move around in the kitchen.

Before Sam leaves the room he places toast on a plate by Bucky's metal elbow.

Bucky pushes the cereal away from him after Sam has fully left the threshold and digs into the buttered toast.

He's been living with Sam and Steve for the past five months. It's interesting living with people who have eagle eyes. Ever since he mentioned passively, one time, that cereal isn't his favorite breakfast food, they suddenly stocked up on basically any other option of breakfast foods.

It happens sometimes, though, that after bad enough nights, Bucky won't have the energy for something more simple than cereal, and won't really be thinking about what he's grabbing. He ends up not eating any of it, just staring at his bowl in resigned distaste. And of course his superhero roommates notice.

After clearing the plate he takes both dishes to the sink. He dumps the cereal and begins to wash. He feels much more awake. Alive. The darkness is something that clings to his skin like a worry that won't ease your chest, but getting something in his stomach, and remembering that his blood is pumping to his heart the same as someone else in his vicinity...it's a good reminder.

He's here. He's aware. He can choose between cereal and toast, and he can get soapy water between his metal joints and be briefly irritated about the drying process instead of not even noticing and moving on with his mission.

This is something he has to remind himself of practically constantly, but he's okay with that. The alternative in being unable to remind himself, sinking into a depression that leads to secluding himself and loneliness and emptiness-

He walks to the living room and finds Steve watching the news, his brows furrowed in what seems like confusion and building anger. Bucky doesn't even look at what's on the television, just goes right up to it and shuts it off.

“Hey! Bucky, come on.” Steve's voice is gruff like it gets when he feels like yelling. Bucky ignores his protest and turns on the radio instead, classic rock filling the room. He grabs one of Steve's sketchbooks from the table and throws it at Steve.

“I want to watch you draw the sky line.” He waves over to the view out the window, buildings practically touching the clouds and the morning sun making all the shiny windows sparkle.

Steve's brow stays furrowed but less anger is there, and Bucky feels a tingle start in his sternum and spread through his chest. The feeling reminds him of smiling, but his mouth muscles won't respond.

He sits next to Steve instead of focusing on that worry, and stares resolutely at the blank page of the sketchbook until Steve sighs and reaches toward the table to get his pencil.

After twenty minutes into the sketching, seconds silently ticking by in the back of Bucky's mind, he says, “It's not good to start the day angry.”

Steve looks over to Bucky for only a moment before getting right back to the sketch. The outline of the buildings are finished, the details not yet filled in, but Steve is focusing now on the few clouds above the buildings before the wind pushes them too far away.

Steve nudges his shoulder against Bucky's left one, and Bucky's heart skips. He doesn't think he'll ever get over that. Light touches, the warmth that tingles in loops around the areas they touch and spreading right to his heart, whispering _safe_ to his brain. He pushed against the nudge and closer to Steve, keeping his eyes on the sketch, and not moving back again.

“You should draw me over the buildings. Or sitting on one of them. Drinking a scotch, and in a really clean-cut suit or something.”

Steve huffs a laugh and the last of his furrowed brows smooths out, and Bucky finally completely relaxes against Steve.

Steve doesn't draw Bucky on any of the buildings, but after his shading he hands it over to Bucky and lets him draw a small stick figure standing on the tallest building, arms in the air and a smile half out of the circled head as the eye brows are pulled down evilly. “All mine!” the stick figure is saying, a shaky speech bubble beside his head, because Steve is shaking beside him with incredulous laughter and their shoulders are still touching.

Bucky intones about the stick figures hopes and dreams, how he came to rule only this one specific building, and throws out ridiculous name combinations for Steve's approval until Steve is laughing outright. They start wrestling over the sketch book because Steve won't let him write “Doofus Mc ButtSucker Rules” at the top.

Bucky doesn't feel like darkness in the face of Steve's blinding smile, and he lets himself cherish the moment until the _safe_ spirals loop across his entire body and his mouth is twitching in delight.

He knows what's coming tonight in his dreams – but right now he's alive and he's not the only one who is. It helps chase away the numbness.

It helps.

 


End file.
